


show me where my skin begins

by aletterinthenameofsanity



Series: hold my hand (i can hear the ghost calling) [22]
Category: Iron Man (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Adoption, Bisexual Male Character, FUCK THIS TOOK FOREVER, Found Family, Happy Ending, Howard Stark's A+ Parenting, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, Marriage, Not Steve Friendly, Panic Attacks, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Recovery, TWO FUCKING MONTHS, Tony Stark Has A Heart, actually mostly fluff, but i have it and i love it, but there are some really intense scenes, oh god it took awhile, the happiest fucking ending, the whole timeline in order
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-23
Updated: 2019-06-23
Packaged: 2020-04-06 04:00:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 19,951
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19054807
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aletterinthenameofsanity/pseuds/aletterinthenameofsanity
Summary: There is no Snap. There is no Thanos, interrupting his happy ending. There is no Civil War in which his team and his family are torn apart. There is no need for him to watch his son die in front of his face, for him to never meet his daughter. No, this is a story, a life, where Tony Stark gets to be happy. This is a story where Sam Wilson gets to be happy, where Riri Williams and Peter Parker get to be happy and don't have to see yet another father and mentor figure die before his time.This is a story without a happy ending, because this story doesn't end. Tony gets to live and love and be loved, and he gets to be happy as he does so.(A story that is for once told in order, beginning to middle to end.)





	show me where my skin begins

**Author's Note:**

  * For [silvermuse](https://archiveofourown.org/users/silvermuse/gifts), [SailorChibi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SailorChibi/gifts), [sensorium](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sensorium/gifts).



> Title is from "Pluto" by Sleeping At Last, the lyrics of which really fit Tony so much that I wanted to quote one section of the song at the beginning of this story but *every single lyric* fit so I couldn't leave the whole song in the fic.
> 
> Also, y'all have no idea how hard it was to write this when I realized that I didn't do any fucking adding when first writing this series and so NONE OF THE FUCKING TIMELINES ADD UP. However, they add up as much as I could possibly make them in this fic, so this is the official timeline for the series, if that makes any sense.
> 
> Also, a note to everyone who commented on "A Question To My Subscribers"- thank you, from the bottom of my heart. Every comment meant so much to me, and I hope beyond hope that this story can possibly count as a gift of sorts to thank you all for everything you said.

_We have not touched the stars,_

_nor are we forgiven, which brings us back_

_to the hero’s shoulders and the gentleness that comes,_

_not from the absence of violence, but despite_

_the abundance of it._

**-Richard Siken, Snow And Dirty Rain**

 

This story begins, as all stories involving Tony Stark begin, with a billionaire stumbling out of a desert, rags wrapped around his head, a suit of unwieldy armor providing marginal protection, and a reactor glowing where his heart should be.

It begins with him collapsing into his best friend's arms, a man who doesn't always agree with him but who will support and defend him until the end of time. It begins with Tony picking himself back up after the most traumatic experience of his life and determining that he  _has_  to change things, to shift the course of his company's future.

-

At first, it works. Tony gets rid of the weapons development section of Stark Industries, makes it something better.

Tony knows that Rhodey is in the military. He knows how much the weapons development sections of Stark Industries has helped his best friend out overseas over the years.

But Tony's weapons were the ones that ended up in the arms of terrorists, somehow or another. And the only reason Tony ever made weapons was because he wanted to make them accurate and fast, to minimize the number of deaths caused by war. Less soldiers would have to die if his weapons were used, less unneccesary casualties would be tallied.

Now that he knows where they're going, though- he can't risk his weapons getting into the hands of people who will abuse them and use them to cause mass destruction like this again. 

So he shuts down the weapons development, instead concentrating that section of Stark Industries' R&D resources on green energy and infrastructure development and communications and the electronics industry. He makes his company something  _good_ , or at least as good as a company can be. He starts to believe in his company and kind of himself again, as he continues to work on creating Iron Man as he works on reworking the company at the same time.

And then Obie comes along and shatters Tony again. 

-

Tony is laying there on that sofa, completely aware, completely able to process sensory input, as Obadiah- a man he's trusted, a man he's  _loved_ \- pulls the arc reactor from his chest. He is unable to move as he is  _violated_ , as the thing he and a dead man built to keep him alive is wrenched from him.

He's never been able to properly trust anyone before, but god, does this really show him yet another reason.

The only person Tony has ever loved that hasn't betrayed him is Rhodey, and even Rhodey can be a bit of an ass at times (though Tony really does love it, because he knows that Rhodey does it out of love, that he really does care about Tony.)

But when he's sitting here, dying, and all he can think about is the slow, agonizing pain of suffocation, of being alone as he dies. There is no Yinsen here, to help him survive, no Rhodey to tease him into life, no Jarvis to support him, nobody to care. He is utterly alone, with his lungs full of ghosts instead of oxygen.

Then Pepper enters the room and saves Tony's life, getting the arc reactor back to him, and maybe, just maybe, he can trust someone else.  

After all, at the end of the week, he's alive. And Obie's been arrested, all thanks to Pepper, who's been an utter godsend the past few months, who really deserves a promotion because  _shit_ , she's fantastic.

And Tony's here. And he's gotta do something to help the world beyond just being Iron Man.

So what he can do? Well, first things first: Tony’s gotta send  _something_ to the military in repayment for Rhodey's help and them getting him out of the Afghan desert, but he's going to make damn sure that it isn't weapons.

He starts a prosthetics program for the wounded veterans, thinking about how it took an artificial organ to save him, and also endorses the Falcon program. He doesn’t exactly start the program- more he locks the military down on a contract to use his wings strictly in a recon capacity, with only wounded soldiers using the prostethics being able to be used in the program, and then Lt. Wilson turns the wings into an actually functioning program.

He meets Sam Wilson a few months after the Falcon program has been officially funded and begun. Sam Wilson catches his eye immediately, and not just because he's handsome and competent and fascinating- it's that he just happens to have a very similar story to Tony as to how he acquired an artificial body part.

Tony doesn’t believe in fate. He’d be stupid to, when so much science proves otherwise. But he does believe in coincidence. In certain variants of luck. In the fact that though the universe is massive, the world can sometimes be very, very small.

So within a few weeks of meeting Sam, he asks him out on a date, a small measure of excitement running up the back of his spine.

Maybe he can expand his circle of trust beyond just Rhodey and Pepper. Maybe he can make this a good thing.

* * *

Their first date is at a diner near the base where the Falcon program is held. Sam is polite but not afraid to respond to things that Tony says that Sam views as incorrect, able to engage him on a discussion on the wings and then able to easily parry without being rude. They share a number of interests- they end up losing an entire hour to a discussion over Star Trek, with both of them geeking out far more than is probably socially acceptable for two middle-aged men, and end up spending half an hour debating the substance of the prequel.

And then, of course, there's the stuff that Tony's completely unfamiliar with, such as Sam utterly mesmerizing love of cooking. 

A rather fascinating and honestly rather entertaining part of the evening is when the food comes out and Sam describes the background of each of the dishes and explaining what was cooked well on the dishes and what could be improved. Though Sam is polite with his comments, they're no less exacting. He obviously knows what he's talking about, and for a good ten minutes Tony just watches him as he monologues, occasionally providing Sam with some of the food off of his own plate to judge. It's almost like watching an episode of Top Chef, and it's incredibly refreshing and honestly kind of fun.

When they part for the night, it's with a few minutes of making out and a promise for another date next week.

Tony's got a good feeling about this. 

* * *

The first time they have sex, Sam pauses in his trip kissing down Tony’s chest to stop and kiss the arc reactor. When Tony flinches, Sam pauses. "Are you okay?"

Tony catalogues the way Sam is treating the arc reactor- not possessively, not as something he'd like to steal, but rather something to worship tenderly. (And it boggles Tony's brain.) "Why'd you kiss it?" he asks, curiosity clear, and Sam smiles.

“It’s what kept you alive," Sam says simply, "It’s what gave me the chance to meet you.”

Tony instantly leans in and kisses Sam, straight on the lips, because god, how the hell did Tony end up with this man in his bed?

* * *

The first time Tony meets Sam’s nieces, he and Sam have been together for about six months.

Tony never had any family for Sam to meet, so meeting Sam’s family is a strange and kind of nerve-wracking experience. He's never met anyone's family before save Rhodey, but that was a kind of different story as Rhodey's Mom and Uncle weren't looking at Tony as a potential son-in-law, but rather just as Rhodey's best friend. 

Meeting Sam's family, now- Tony's good with smoozing, but this  _matters_  on a personal level in a way he's never had to experience before. Though Sam reassures him that it will go fine, right now there's a bit of anxiety rising in his chest that he tries not to let show.

So meeting Georgia does a quite a lot to ease his nerves.  
  
“Hello,” Tony says, crouching down to meet Georgia’s eyes, “My name is Tony. What’s yours?”

Georgia looks inordinately serious. “Georgia Wilson. I’m gonna be a doctor when I grow up.”

Tony grins. “Sounds like a great idea to me. I’m a doctor, you know.”

The serious look instantly falls off of Georgia’s face, replaced by one of wonder. “Really? Uncle Sam didn’t say you were a doctor!”

“Yeah, well, Uncle Sam forgets a lot of things,” Tony says with a smirk.

“Hey!” Sam says, heading over from talking to his brother and sister-in-law, baby Ayana in his arms. “You’re supposed to be nice to your boyfriend!”

Georgia stomps over to Sam, hugs him tightly around his bionic leg, and then detaches herself with fury across her face. “How dare you not tell me that your boyfriend is a doctor, Uncle Sam!” She scolds, hands on her tiny hips. Tony has to swallow back a laugh. Sam's nieces are fucking adorable, and not a reason to be nervous.

"Guess it slipped my mind," Sam says, then smiles over at Tony. "Told you she'd love you."

Yeah, Sam did. He'd been right in having faith in Tony. God, does Tony love this man. 

* * *

To be honest, Tony's been proposed to before. As a joke, as a publicity stunt in front of paparazzi- always an accident that can be shrugged off later.

But when Sam proposes, Tony knows that he's genuine. And that's what's strange for Tony- the idea that people would want to marry him for his wealth and fame makes sense. But Sam- their relationship is mostly hidden. The only reason to pick Tony is for himself, not for clout or wealth.

And that means something, it truly does. It means something when Tony lets out a breathless, "Yes," and they then spend the next twenty minutes making out like teenagers, letting their food go cold on the counter beside them. It means something when they part, laughing their asses off as they realize that the food is still sitting there. It means something when they have to chuck the restaurant food into the trash can and Sam ends up whipping up some kind of new bread recipe he's been wanting to try for ages instead.

God, it means something when Tony is able to say yes to life with a man who has never made him feel anything but safe and loved.

-

The wedding is small and rather simple, taking place on the roof of the Tower. Both Tony and Sam agree that for now, they want to keep things personal and intimate and close to the chest. They don't want to let their marriage out yet- they'd prefer at least a couple of years of privacy before that.

Some day down the line, they might have a vow renewal with a bigger celebration. Maybe, if they ever decide to go public with this.

But for now, it's just Sam's immediate family, his nieces, Pepper, Rhodey, and Happy. Sam's sister Sara, a preacher like her father, is officiating, and JARVIS is their unofficial wedding photographer. Ayana is their unofficial flower girl, as though there is no aisle to walk down she has taken it upon herself to chuck flower petals at them as they kiss.

There's a small party afterward in the penthouse, but it ends a decent time due to Ayana and Georgia's bed times. And Tony doesn't care- he absolutely loves every minute of the night, from the short but great first dance to the fact that Ayana pulls him into the Cha-Cha slide and then refuses to let him stop dancing with her for twenty minutes to the ending, with him and Sam in bed together.

In bed, Sam gives him his and Riley's dogtags, and Tony promises to protect them with his life. And he means that- because just as much as his ring is a symbol of the promise Sam and Tony made, the dogtags are a symbol as well.

* * *

It's kind of hard to balance the desire to stop producing weapons and the fact that his husband is a soldier sometimes, especially when he hears about what's happening to Sam and what Sam's doing in Afghanistan.

"I understand you not wanting to produce weapons for the military," Sam says on one of their few phone calls. "Even if I don't quite try to achieve my goals in the same way as you. I'm a soldier to try and make the world a better place, to defend my country and family. You're doing the same thing, just going about it a different way."

Tony nods. He's never been somebody to doubt his own decisions or his goals. Nothing the critics had to say has ever been able to turn him from his chosen goals. Fuck those who tried to turn him away from what he valued.

But he has always cared about the opinions of the people who actually care about him. Rhodey, Pepper, Happy, Sam, the original Jarvis, even his mother at times- Tony takes their opinions into consideration far more than he ever would some nameless critic. He wants to make sure that what he's doing is something that they would agree with, that they would value and call right.

So having those people supporting and agreeing with him on the big things- that's something Tony is thankful for.

"Thank you," Tony says, "I really appreciate it, I do."

"Appreciate what?" Sam asks, raising an eyebrow in question.

"Your support."

Sam gives him a fond grin. "Oh, Tones, you'll always have that."

Tony's right hand drifts to his chest, where his fingers find Sam's ring and dogtags (and Riley's dogtags, precious as they are) around his neck. His fingers rub against the ring as they often do when he's in any way nervous or in need of comfort, reminding him of what he promised to Sam, and what was promised to him in turn. Support, love, a guarantee that they would always be there for each other. "That I will," he agrees, "And you'll always have mine, honey."

"Aw, you sap," Sam teases, voice going fond, and Tony smiles into his end of the phone.

"Always with you, darling," he says.

"I can't wait to see you again," Sam says, and Tony can't help but agree. He wants nothing more than to see his husband again, to spend more time with him. 

"Me too. And in the meantime, just..."  _Try not to die_  isn't exactly something that would be nice to hear while Sam's in Afghanistan, so Tony settles for: "Please remember to take care of yourself over there, okay?"

Sam gives him a fond smile. "Only if you do the same, Mr. Superhero."

Tony grins. He doesn't often feel like a superhero, but when Sam says it, he can almost believe it.  "Of course."

* * *

Then Sam finally comes home, which means that not only does Tony get to see his husband, he gets to taste Sam's cooking again.

Sam likes to cook a variety of things, most of which he's picked up from being stationed around the world. His favorite cuisines have got to be from Mexico and India, with a variety of spices and flavors they're able to pull into small dishes. He's especially fascinated with the different ways that they be made to bake bread, so different from the full, often very stiff loaves of bread Houston America and in much of Europe.

And God, Tony loves listening to Sam talk about the techniques used in different kinds of food. He loves the way that Sam's face lights up, loves watching Sam assemble and cook these different foods. He loves watching the weight Sam's fingers move, so sure. Sam is just as comfortable in the kitchen as he is on the battlefield, just as in tune with his ingredients as he is with Redwing.

Sam is a master of his craft, even if he calls himself an amateur. Tony has seen plenty of chefs over the years, and though many of them have a passion for what they do, a sincere love for what they're making, there's something about Sam that makes him special.

“So,” Tony never tires of asking, “What are we having for dinner?”

And Sam looks at him. “It's a surprise,” he says with a mischievous smile, “Unless you want to make a request?”

Tony shakes his head. “Nah,” he says, “I trust your judgment. Whatever you make is going to be fantastic.”

“Ah,” Sam says, “a man who's not afraid to experiment.”

Tony grins. “You know me well.”

“Yeah, you could definitely say that,” Sam agrees, then waves a hand in Tony’s direction. “Now get out. This can’t be a suprise if you’re here the whole time watching.”

Tony pouts, just a little. One of his favorite things in the world is watching Sam cook, and it’s one of the few things that can, without a doubt, tempt him from the laboratory. When he’s aware of dinner being cooked, such as today, when he’d had a meeting instead of lab time, it’s hard to drag him away from the kitchen now that he has the opportunity to watch Sam in action.

However, everyone who lives in the Tower knows that the kitchen is Sam’s domain. Tony has the main lab, but Sam is king here, among the kitchen appliances and fridges. Everyone is a subject here, when Sam is at work.

“Alright, I’ll be back soon enough,” Tony says, and Sam smiles.

“Don’t forget to have JARVIS set an alarm,” he says.

"Don't worry," Tony says, "I will." He waves at the ceiling. "JARVIS, man, mind setting an alarm?"

"Of course, sir," the AI's familiar, comforting voice responds, "Alarm set for when Master Sam is set to be done cooking, exact ETA to be determined after you leave the room and he informs me of what dinner should be."

"You two are ganging up on me with the teasing," Tony protests half-heartedly, and Sam winks at him.

"It's all your fault, dear," Sam says, "You're the one that gave him that personality, after all."

"I guess I do have to take the fault for that one, right, JARVIS?" Tony asks the room.

"I do agree with Lt. Stark-Wilson, sir," JARVIS says, and Sam's smile widens just a little at the name.

"Then I guess I'll just go to the lab, then," Tony says, and Sam nods.

"You do that," he says, "See you in about half an hour."

* * *

After a few months of married bliss, Sam has to take off on his final tour, leaving Tony left with no one to really talk to. Rhodey's off on actual government-military-business-shit and Pepper's gotten really busy with running the company (he promoted her a little while ago, because  _damn_ , is Pepper  _wildly_  overskilled for the position of PA.

Which leaves Tony left with no one to talk to, so he starts making a real effort to talk to his PA. Natalie Rushman, with the perfectly average accent and stellar recommendations and grace of an ex-ballet dancer. 

Or not, as he comes to learn. Natalie Rushman is a woman with hair nearly as blindingly red as Pepper's and a gaze that has Tony  _very_ scared to cross her. (He's not entirely sure why, only that everything about her- her gaze, her smile, her outfit- seems sharp. In a dangerous, intimidating sort of way.) Soon enough, in the mess of the arc reactor poisoning him, he learns just why she puts him on edge, her background as a spy clearly explaining that odd vibe he gets from her.

And Tony knows that he likes her. If she was willing to stay, he would keep her. But she's a spy and has other duties to attend to.

Well, at least he hopes he can keep her as a friend. Natasha seems like she'd be lots of fun to grab coffee with.

-

But speaking about that fucking arc reactor-

In all the mess of Natalie Rushman ending up being a spy for SHIELD, he finds out his beloved arc reactor is poisoning his chest. 

He can’t tell Sam about how he's dying. Sam’s in Afghanistan, for the last time, getting shot at and trying to make his way home. He doesn't deserve to worry about his husband, who is slowly being poisoned by the device that originally saved his life- the arc reactor that Sam is so fucking proud of.

But Tony can leave a message, for his too-brave, too-young husband to find if Tony dies before his time. And he does, saving a backup copy of it in every AI in their home, just in case.

Hopefully Sam won't have to hear them, but just in case of the worst possible outcome, which is looking more and more likely as the days go by without a solution found.

-

Then Natasha- not Natalie, _Natasha_ \- injects him with an antidote and Tony deletes all of the voicemails, then calls Sam, because he's not dying so he won't worry Sam but he probably  _should_ be honest with the man he married. 

So Sam finds out about the whole mess over the phone and he's worried but he doesn't guilt Tony about it, like Rhodey and Pepper tend to do when he fucks up with them. He just asks Tony to be honest with him going forward, concern in his voice.

Pepper and Rhodey love Tony, he knows that. But Sam- Sam’s different. He’s the man who understands Tony and his past and those desert-dry dreams of explosions better than anyone else can. He’s the man who knows how to ask without pressuring him.

So Tony promises to be as honest as he can with his husband.

* * *

Then Tony ends up flying into a black hole and his last thought is of Sam, of how much he really does want to live for his husband. He's willing to sacrifice himself to save the world, but he doesn't want to.

He ends up calling Sam's phone, though it's a long shot that he'll even get through. And surprise surprise, he doesn't. It's Sam's last week in Afghanistan and there's no way he's going to be checking his phone.

So instead, Tony ends up falling, the breath slowly being crushed from his lungs as his vision goes dark. Not for the first time, he is dying and falling and he can't breathe. He's in that explosion in Afghanistan, dying slowly on the sofa as Obie pulls out his heart, and he  _can't reach Sam_.

His chest feels like it's caving in as his vision winks out-

And it feels like seconds later, he's on the ground, the Avengers by his side and his face mask gone. "Did we win?" he gasps out, thinking of Sam's parents back in Harlem, Pepper in the Tower, Jeremiah, Sam's brother, down in Queens. He even thinks of Sara and John's apartment in Harlem- they're out of the city on vacation, thank god, but their apartment could have gotten smashed.

"Yeah," Steve says, breathing out a huge sigh of relief, "We won."

And, well, at least there's that.

-

Tony makes the calls as soon as the Avengers are eating dinner at a shwarma place, trying to recoup their strength after the exhausting battle they just fought. (He asks to borrow and totally reimburse the owner of the place for the use of their phone, and thank god they let him, because he has to make sure that his family is okay.) First call is to Pepper, to check in with how she's doing and the general state of things, and then to Darlene and Paul Wilson.

Darlene is the one to pick up the phone. "Darlene Wilson, here," she says, and her familiar New York accent is like music to his weary ears. "We're kind of busy right now, but 

"Oh, thank god," he says, slumping back in his seat. "You're okay. Is Paul okay?"

"Tony!" Darlene practically shouts in his ear, "Thank the lord, you're okay! We've all been trying to get ahold of you, but we couldn't."

Tony is able to breathe a minor sigh of relief. He thinks, due to her use of the word "we," it means that everyone is okay. "The comms systems are down in my suit," Tony says, "They winked out on reentry and I haven't gotten a chance to go back to the Tower yet to reimplant them. I tried to call as soon as I could, though." 

"Well, we're glad you did," Darlene says, "We were so worried about you- Paul's right here next to me, he just got home from his shift volunteering at the hospital, and Jeremiah called a couple of minutes ago. He's all good down at the postal office. Sara, John, and the girls are out of the city visiting John's parents, and so they weren't even here for any of it."

With every name Darlene lists off, a bit of the weight lifts from Tony's chest. His family is okay. Rhodey was out of the city, off on work for the government in California, Pepper and Happy are safe in the Tower, Sam's in Afghanistan, far away from the invasion, and Tony's in-laws are all okay.

"Thanks for telling me, Darlene," Tony says.

"No problem, sweetheart," Darlene says, "We're just glad to hear that you're okay, especially after that battle. We only could only see a little bit of it on the emergency news, but Arleatha's daughter, Jenny- you remember her, right, she's John's business partner- works nearby to where most of the worst action went down and she called Arleatha to tell her what happened, and then Arleatha told us about how you flew into the sky. Jenny said it looked like you disappeared."

Tony swallows. "Yeah, the battle got a bit rough in places, but I made it out." No point in telling his mother-in-law that her son nearly became a widower- only Sam needs to know that. Tony doesn't have to worry Darlene.

"Well, thanks for protecting the city," Darlene says, "And I hate to cut you off, Tony dear, but I've got to finish checking on the other people in the building, so-"

Tony smiles. "Of course, ma'am," he says, and she lets out a small squawking noise.

"What have I told you about calling me ma'am?"

"Call you Darlene," he dutifully responds, feeling something happy bloom in his chest at the familiar joke.

"That's right, dear," she says, "Now, I love you, and Paul and I hope to see you for dinner some time in the next few weeks."

"I'll be there," he promises.

"Goodbye, dear," she says.

"Goodbye, Darlene," he says, and she hangs up her side of the phone, leaving Tony with a smile on his face as he returns the phone to the owner of the restaurant.

Then he returns to the table, where a few members of the team are staring at him with a note of confusion on his face.

"Who was that?" Steve asks, raising an eyebrow, and Tony gives him a small smile.

"Family," he says. "They're all okay, thank god."

"You have a family?" Clint raises an eyebrow, and Tony nods.

"We've all got people we care about, Barton," he says, deflecting the question a little, and it works. Clint and Natasha glance at each other and give a small nod, then give Tony small, understanding smiles. Steve still seems a bit off, but he doesn't ask any more questions.

* * *

Then Sam gets back from his final tour with the Army, and Tony hugs him and kisses him and swears to any deity that may exist that he will never get into another situation where Sam isn't the person he says his last words to.

-

Sam joins the Avengers, and though Tony's worried about him- just as he was when Sam was in Afghanistan, getting shot at every day- he's honestly kind of happy. Sam now lives in New York City at the Avenger Tower on a regular basis, and he and Tony can live together and go on dates on a semi-regular basis.

It's honestly pretty stress-relieving to finally be able to spend his life with his husband and not have to keep up such a long-distance relationship, Tony's got to admit.

Sam’s first battle with the Avengers goes very well, with him, Tony, Cap, and Bruce taking down some minor alien threats. Sam gets his first practical experience in an alien battle, and it turns out (no surprise to Tony), that Sam's really fucking good doing what he does.

To be honest, as much as Tony worries about Sam during such high-powered battle as the ones the Avengers fight, he's also pretty proud to watch his husband fight so well. It's not just the strength behind his punches, it's also his ability to be flexible and agile as well as pulling some rather clever and smart maneuvers.

(And at the very end of the list, it's honestly kind of hot to watch Sam fight in battle. Tony's not going to deny to himself the number of times he and Sam have made out after a mission, in a hotel or even back in the Avengers Tower. Watching Sam fight is as attractive as watching him cook: an almost religiously transformative experience.)

So Sam becomes an official Avenger, though he tends to take a lot more of the domestic issues than the foreign ones, especially those localized to the New York area. Soon enough Falcon is heralded as the Defender of New York, a title that Sam carries with pride.

-

Most of the other Avengers have realized that Sam and Tony are together by this point. Only Natasha and Bruce realize that they’re married, but everyone  _gets_ it. Well, at least everyone except Steve, who’s oblivious as ever, but, well, not everyone can be a supergenius. (And besides, the whole "time-period-appropriate-heteronormative-worldview" also gets in the way a bit of the obvious.)

To be honest, their relationship being an open secret doesn't really change much. They still hang out with the team on a regular basis, still attend movie nights and cook for team barbecues, still sleep on the topmost floor on the building while the rest of the Avengers sleep on the penultimate floor...yeah, they weren't very subtle about this, were they?

Well, Tony trusts this team. He trusts them to understand and to accept and not to tell. 

* * *

_Blood. Broken heroes. All around him, total devastation._  

_Tony stumbles over to an all-too-familiar corpse. "Sam," he sobs, as he reaches down to touch his husband's ashen face. "Oh god, you're dead."_

Tony wakes up with a gasp, Sam's hand on his arm. "It's all a dream, Tony," comes Sam's calm and soothing voice.

Tony rolls over to face Sam, seeking to see the unbloodied, unhurt face of his husband. "You're safe," he croaks, voice rough with sleep, as he reaches out to touch Sam's face. "You're safe."

"Bad flashback?" Sam asks, used to Tony's nightmares. He has so many- falling apart in Afghanistan, sitting helplessly as Obadiah pulls out his heart (sometimes pulling out Sam's, inexplicably, in his worst nightmares), and falling through space, no one to catch him.

"No," Tony says, swallowing. "Nightmare."

“Wanna talk about it?”

-

Building Ultron- it's for everyone. For the world, for the team, but most of all for his family. For Pepper and Rhodey, always by his side. For his nieces and parents-in-law and siblings-in-law.  
  
For Sam, his husband.  
_  
__-_

Then, at a party for the Avengers, Tony and Sam lift the hammer together, and Thor tells them-

Perfect partners, together made great.

There is something poetic about such a sentiment, something as perfect as the numbers that code JARVIS.

-

Once they've defeated Ultron (for now, the ominous voice reminds him), he immediately turns to Sam and Rhodey.

"I'm sorry," he says, staring at them, begging them to know the truth, "I was only trying to protect you all."

"It's okay," Sam says, even as Steve starts to bark out orders and assign blame, and Tony's heart starts to repair itself.

-

"You okay, man?" Tony asks Rhodey in between attempts to build something to combat Ultron. Tony's gaze rests on Rhodey's shoulder, on the injury he sustained battling Ultron at the party.

Rhodey nods. "Be back to normal in a day or so."

"You sure?" Tony asks, guilt creating a lump in his throat.

"Yeah, Tony," Rhodey says with a familiar, reassuring smile.

-  
  
They all get blasted by the girl as they battle on the boat. Sam goes down by a pillar, just barely avoiding whacking his head.

_It's his and Tony's wedding reception. A small, private affair, just like their wedding, but big enough to provide Tony an excuse for a party._

_Then Sam notices that they're not in Stark tower but rather on the SHIELD helicarrier, open to the wind, and Riley's spiraling past them, smoke gutting past him-_ _  
_ _Everything implodes, and a moment later everything is rubble. From what Sam can see, Rhodes and Pepper have both had their bottom halves crushed by falling stone. Next to them is Riley's corpse, eyes staring sightlessly at Sam._

_And Tony...he's gasping on the floor, blood leaking out of the corner of his mouth._

_Sam crawls over to him, throat in his mouth._

_“Please, Tony,” he croaks, “You can’t die. I can’t lose you.”_

_Tony's eyes go dark._

"SAM!" A familiar voice shouts, and Sam feels something tugging at him. He opens his eyes to find Tony crouched over him, the Iron Man helmet retracted to show worry creasing his face. His face slumps when he sees that Sam is awake. "Oh thank God you're okay. Everyone's been incapacitated. I had to take down Bruce in Hulk form just minutes ago and I couldn't find you at first and was worried that the armor wouldn't protect you and-"

He's cut off by Sam's gloved hand reaching up and resting against the side of his neck. "Tones," he says softly, and Tony's voice putters to a halt. Underneath Sam's fingers Tony's pulse starts to slow down from its skittering pace. "I'm okay."

Tony takes a deep breath to calm down, takes Sam's free hand in his, and helps him to his feet. Sam's wings creak the slightest bit as they relax back into their full form. "You're right," Tony says, "And thank Spock for it."

Sam gives him a weary smile. "And I'll be even better once this is all over."

Tony snorts, though his expression is pretty weary. "You can say that again."   
  
_-_  
  
Out of all this wreckage rises Vision, Tony’s greatest creation. Born of Jarvis, a synthetic body, Loki’s scepter, and the wreckage of the first Ultron, he is a creature like no other.

The idea of Vision terrifies Tony. That he could help create something so powerful, so beyond the scope of reason and science, something beyond AI and approaching almost "magic," (if he was willing to use a phrase that defies logic in such a way) is insane. 

-

Tony flies into Sokovia with one mission in mind: he will burn Ultron down to protect those he loves.

(If he dies, oh well. Tony’s never been very good at self-preservation.)  
  
-  
  
"I'm too fucking old for this," Tony complains into the comms as the Avengers cleave their way through Ultron's army, and if Sam wasn't this focused he would roll his eyes.

"You're forty nine," Sam shouts as his metal gloves punch their way through a robot as he flies over the field. "That ain't old."

"That's plenty old," Natasha jokes. "Feeling the arthritis in your joints yet, Stark?"

"I'm not married to an old man," Sam says.

"Twelve year age difference, Wilson," Clint shouts as he releases yet another arrow.

"Wait, you're married?" Steve says, shock clear, and Natasha actually laughs.

"Didn't figure it out yet, Rogers?"

Sam raises an eyebrow as he aims a swing kick at the next robot. “Didn’t you see my wedding ring?”

“Yes, but I didn’t- oh.”

There’s a screech of metal on metal and Tony comes barreling through, a couple of robots stuck on his fist. "Want some shish kebob for dinner tonight, love?" He asks, and Sam can practically hear the smirk in his tone.

"You know I'm the cook, darling," Sam says as he dives down to smash his boots into a robot near Thor's back.

Clint groans. "Fight now, flirt later, both of you."

"Got it, Birdbrain," Tony says, and slings the robots at another couple, knocking them over like bowling pins.

-

Ten minutes later, on a completely different side of the island, bullets are hurtling at Pietro Maximoff and Clint Barton. Sam dives in, scoops the speedster up by the armpits, and flies off. He deposits the kid a few blocks away.  
  
The boy’s eyes are wide. “You just saved my life,” he says, shocked.  
  
Sam grins. “Yep. You good? Ready to fight?”  
  
Pietro nods. “Yes.”  
  
“Good," Sam says, clapping a hand on the boy's back. "We’ve got a city to save.”

* * *

After the battle is over and won, with Ultron destroyed, Steve takes off on the trail of the Winter Soldier, who he claims he saw at some point during the battle. The rest of the Avengers, exhausted and battle weary, stay behind to help clean up before heading back to the Tower. They remain at the site for days, doing as much as they can for the moment.

They  _do_  have to leave, eventually, return home to paperwork and other missions and a place where Tony can consult with Pepper on how to send money to help with the repairs. But before the quinjet has arrived at the airfield to pick up the Avengers, Tony has gotten a message from Steve telling him that he's found Bucky but that he needs backup. And Tony, of course, doesn't say no. He has to help his teammates out, whether out of the goodness of his heart or because Steve is a supersoldier in a time that's not his own and Tony needs to minimize collateral damage. (Probably a mixture of the two, honestly.)

When Tony leaves the airfield at Sokovia, he tells Sam he’ll be home tomorrow. He tells him that it’ll just be a quick trip.

Tony fibs and tells white lies to get himself through a lot of stuff. He’s always been good at knowing what people want to hear, and it’s a talent that’s done him well in the business world.

But he doesn’t lie to Sam. He doesn’t fib. He never has. Tony learned at a very young age that it’s a very good idea to always tell the truth to the people you care about, the people who matter to you.

So when he says one day until he’ll be home, he means it. He kisses Sam goodbye and tells him he’ll be home tomorrow and he doesn’t intend to miss that flight.

-

Here's an important part of the story: Tony trusted Steve to tell him the truth. He trusted him to care enough to let him know things, even when they hurt.

(Tony trusts everyone far more than they probably deserve, and it keeps getting him hurt. His father, Obadiah, Steve- the list keeps on.)

-

And then Siberia happens, and it takes Tony hours to get up off of that cave floor. Every part of his body aches and burns and stabs him with utter agony. It feels like he was hit by a quinjet- and in a lot of ways, he was.

A few minutes ago a supersoldier shoved an indestructible shield into Iron Man’s chest, coming an inch away from killing Tony outright.

He’s crying as he moves, his ribs feeling like they’re exploding in his torso, his limbs bruised beyond measure. Sometimes the pain is too much to bear. Sometimes you get knocked down and you know you have to get back up but when the world's pressing down on your body, sometimes you can't. Sometimes it takes a minute to be able to gather your breath and get to your feet.

There’s nothing weak about crying. There’s something incredibly natural about it, when your entire body has been turned into a punching bag and your trust has been completely betrayed.

There are tears in Tony's eyes as he gets back up, but he still manages to push himself up into a sitting position so that he can try to communicate with his AI. It's not JARVIS, not anymore, but FRIDAY's just as good for simple functions until he programs her more sophisticated upgrades.

"Friday," Tony rasps, trying to talk to the AI that's currently serving as JARVIS' replacement, "Call the quinjet to come get me," but nothing responds.

Shit. His comm is out. He can't call home. He can't call anyone.

(Fuck, fuck, fuck. Tony can't call Sam. After promising himself never to get into a situation where he couldn't contact his husband, he managed to let this happen. Fuck.)

He is stuck here.

He's in the middle of Siberia, with his ribs bruised and his limbs aching and he thinks his arm broken. He has to get moving, to get warm and to find a way to call home. He has to find a way back to the quinjet, a mile away, entirely under his own power. Without a coat. Without entirely functional armor. 

So Tony painstakingly gets up, pushing through the utter pain, tears leaking from his eyes as he moves. He knows he has to get moving. Priority one is to get this crushed metal off of his chest. He has to be able to breathe properly in order to be able to go anywhere, after all.

He breathes a sigh of relief when his fingers brush up against the activation buttons for his gloves and they still work. He's got at least a little super strength left, enough to pry the chest plate off. He's got to get it off, anyway- it's better to have his chest a little bit exposed to the elements than to have it continue to be crushed by the wrecked armor.

Tony swallows dryly when he sees the dogtags and his wedding ring, both dented by Steve's shield shoving into them. Well, fuck. As destroyed as the chest plate had been, Tony had definitely been hoping that the dogtags and wedding ring had been okay. He'd promised Sam that he would protect both Riley and his husband's dogtags, and Steve has nearly destroyed them with his shield. 

Well, Tony can't let the disappointment stop him. He has to keep going, for his own personal health and for the people he cares about.

Tony stands up, leaving the gloves on his hands and the armor around his legs. There's enough power left to get him at least a mile or two, if he walks. And he  _will_  have to. 

Well, Tony is no stranger to getting himself out of disaster situations. He is no stranger to extreme temperatures, to bruised limbs, to surviving the worst possible disasters.

But this  _is_  years after his crash in Afghanistan. Tony is older and weaker and plagued by panic attacks and shaky hands. He is reliving his worst fucking nightmare.

He takes a deep breath and starts walking in the direction of the quinjet, which should still be parked about a mile away. He can do this. He has to get back to his family. He has to kiss Sam and eat Sam's newest culinary creation and sleep in their bed. He has to find his way back to the people and place he is finally able to call home.

(Tony purposefully doesn't think about Steve and Bucky, instead only dwelling on dreams of home to push him forward. He can't afford to linger on the betrayal and the beating he just experienced when he has to get himself out of this.)

There is no Rhodey coming to get him. There are no heroes to save him. He has to make his way out and make his way home.

At least Tony has the armor to help him out a little bit.

* * *

For weeks after Tony gets back from Siberia, Sam finds ways to make him feel comfortable, and Tony does the same.

The arc reactor’s not exactly necessary to keep him alive anymore, but Sam still kisses it. Still shows his appreciation, in this small way.

Tony closes his eyes and imagines what might have happened if Steve had shoved just a little further. If he had just cleaved a little cleaner of a path into Tony's heart. If Tony hadn't returned home and Sam would have been left without a message, without a final "I love you," just an unfulfilled promise return home.

In turn, Tony takes care in crafting Sam's new leg. Together they design it, improving on the initial design with Sam's suggestions from the past few years, and within a week and a half they have a new leg to test out.

When the leg slides back onto Sam's leg, Tony is careful to help keep it polished, running one of his favorite cloths over the surface of the leg every few days. He practically worships Sam's leg, making sure to pay it the same kind of attention that Sam gives his arc reactor.

(And maybe it's a bit strange, the amount of attention both of them pay to each other's broken parts and mechanical organs, but it works for them. It means something to them.)

* * *

Steve comes home.

He comes fucking home, to a place that is his home because he's an Avenger, but that Tony can't consider home with Steve in it anymore. Tony can't face Steve without flinching. He can't sit next to him at the table or on the sofa anymore without his lungs threatening to close up, without the feeling of the armor crushing into his chest threatening to overwhelm him.

(You'd think that Tony would dream of getting beaten within an inch of his life, that his nightmares would be of Steve and Bucky wailing on him in a freezing cave.

But to his surprise, he doesn't. Instead he dreams of suffocation, of his chest collapsing in on itself, of his ribs being crushed so thoroughly that he can't get any air in.

He dreams of dying, helpless to breathe in the most basic thing necessary to survive.)

- 

Tony should have known that his husband had his back. He should have known that Sam wouldn’t stand to let him freak out day in and day out, suffer through nightmares and panic attacks because of a certain blond-haired supersoldier.

But even to this day, Tony still has irrational doubts in the people he loves. Even after years of marriage with Sam and decades of friendship with people like Rhodey and Happy and even Pepper, he still expects them to leave him. He expects that he’ll always be giving too much, more than anyone else (and he’s happy to do so), but that no one else will ever want to give that much back to him.

Sam, however, keeps proving him wrong. He keeps standing up for Tony, time after time, loving and caring and supporting him. He keeps backing Tony up when even Tony won’t do the same for himself. He's the one who pushes for Steve to have to leave the Tower.

(Captain America is supposed to be a good role model for kids, is supposed to embody the best about America, but Steve Rogers embodies the worst. The prejudice, the inability to listen, and the unwillingness to change one's ideals or learn to adapt. 

Sam, on the other hand, embodies everything good about America. Bravery, dedication, the willingness to learn and to overcome obstacles without Pushing others over in the process.

Sam, unlike Steve, is a hero in every sense of the word, a role model and a good man, and Tony could not be prouder to call him not just his husband, but his  _hero_.)

Steve gets kicked out of Avengers Tower and Tony can breathe again. The ring and dogtags hang around his neck without feeling like they're crushing the air from his lungs. They feel like a reminder of the man who loves him rather than the man who betrayed him.

* * *

This is when Tony hears about Spiderman, inexperienced and new, and he knows that he has to help Spiderman figure things out. After all, you don't become the newest superhero in New York without the Avengers finding out.

At first, Spider-Man doesn't seem to be anything  _too_  strange. A web-slinging vigilante might have seemed something too special back ten years ago, when the only hero New York had seen was Captain America, but after Iron Man and Falcon and aliens descending from the sky and a literal  _god_  living in Avengers Tower, Spider-Man isn't too weird a stretch of the imagination.

Then Tony finds out that Spiderman is just a kid. A kid who is too smart for his own good, who is having to deal with superpowers and homework and growing up all while also trying to be a superhero.

Tony understands difficult childhoods. He understands the pressure to succeed and how it can stunt emotional growth, how it can turn hope and potential into arrogance or crushing self-doubt.

Peter’s a good kid- an earnest kid, a kind kid, a smart kid. He’s exactly the kind of kid who has a bright future if the world doesn't crush the spirit out of him. And Tony- well, he wants to prevent that from happening. So he takes Peter on as an intern and brings him into the fold of the Avengers and, more importantly, Sam, who is the absolute best person to introduce to an awkward queer teenager trying to be a superhero. Within a week, Sam has Peter looking at him with the same kind of admiring smile that Peter gives Tony, who he's looked up to for years.

- 

Spiderman becomes the Defender of New York, the title that used to be Sam's, the title that used to be Tony's, and it feels like a legacy being passed down to a trusted heir than it feels like superheroes being switched out. It feels like a choice, almost, and in a way it is, what with Tony helping develop Peter's suit and Sam contributing to his training.

And within a couple of months of working with Peter both as an intern in the lab and as Spiderman, Tony finds himself having to admit to Sam that he really is becoming fond of the kid.

And no wonder- Tony meets a kid who reminds him of himself, a bit- a difficult childhood for a brilliant boy- but to be honest, he thinks that Peter reminds him even more of Sam. Peter's brave and selfless, wanting nothing more than the best for everyone, and his warm smile can light up the world. He has an almost aggressive optimism about the world, a stubborn drive towards good.

Sam says that Peter reminds him of Tony, but god, Peter's just like Sam.  

- 

And in the meantime, Peter Parker doesn't join the official team, exactly, because in no world would Tony let a sixteen-year-old year old kid become an Avenger, but he does spend a lot of time in the Tower. He joins in on movie nights and family dinners, becomes an integral part of Tony's family without Tony even realizing sometimes.

When Sam jokes about the two of them being uncles to Peter, two months into this situation, Tony starts to understand that his family is more than just Sam, the Wilsons, Pepper, Rhodey, and maybe Happy. This boy, this teenager with eyes too wide with wonder and with a heart too big for his body- Tony considers him his own. He thinks of him as a nephew, or maybe even-

Tony's thoughts skitter over the word "son," because that feels like too much. That feels too close.

Tony will settle for protegee or mentee, for now. He doesn't know if he can handle more.

So for now, Peter becomes almost an Avengers-adjacent, a hero whose responsibility isn't the world, but rather a small section of it, the city he calls home. And he keeps going to school in the meantime, still being as normal of a teenage as possible, and Tony starts to feel like he could most definitely get used to this new normal, with Peter in his and Sam's life.

* * *

It's about four months after Peter became Spiderman and there's a field trip from a local high school currently touring Avengers Tower. That's not really a surprise. They often do that (free of charge- Tony sponsors tons of educational stuff every year, especially for financially disadvantaged schools) here at the Tower.

What  _is_ a surprise, though, is the fact that he's just entered the lab to find a young teenage girl with her hands on one of the Iron Man suits, her expression screwed up in thought.

"What the-" he starts, and she turns to face him.

“You know,” the girl says, “Have you ever thought about creating organic-based armor, such as utilizing the composition of turtle shells? Or perhaps enhancing physical conditions using animal DNA? There are some weak points at the joints of this suit that could really use some reinforcing.”

Tony blinks at her, taking in the focus in her dark eyes and the raw ends of her nails. Her red hoodie is a bit bedraggled and jeans are faded. Her sneakers are a scuffed off-white, and her coiled hair is the only well-kept aspect about her.

(Tony has to wonder where that drive in her eyes comes from, why when she looks at him she feels so much like a reflection of himself.)

"No, I haven't really," he admits, just a bit thrown by her being in his lab. The public never comes here, even on tours- he has the lab downstairs for that. "How did you get here?"

She smirks. “The internet at the public library’s great for researching blueprints, Dr. Stark.”

“Tony,” he corrects automatically, mind whirring as he takes in this girl- she can’t be more than fourteen at most- who has picked out a flaw in the Mark XXXI that he didn’t realize was there. “Call me Tony.”

Her expression flickers, a note of insecurity passing over her features before disappearing. “Sure,  _Tony_ ,” she says.

"Just how old are you?" he asks, because he knows all too well not to judge a person based on age. 

“I'm fourteen-years-old, and I'm trying to apply to MIT in the fall,” the girl says, “I know I'm too young, but I'm rather close to building my own armor and their resources could help me get the materials I need to finish it.”

“Intern here,” Tony offers without a second thought. He loves mentoring young brilliant people, teaching them and providing them with the ways to succeed. He did it with Peter- he can definitely do it for this girl, who managed to find her way into his lab (and  _past his security protocol_ , mind you), who has such an obvious intellect and interest in science.

The girl’s eyes go wide. “Are you serious?”

Tony nods. “As the fucking desert.”

Her eyes narrow in suspicion for just a moment, but then she nods. "Alright, then. I'm down."

Tony smiles. “What's your name?”

“Riri,” the girl says, "Riri Williams."

Tony grins and sticks out a hand. “Nice to meet you, Riri. I’m Tony Stark.”

Riri snorts but shakes his hand. “Everyone knows who you are, Tony.”

"I think this is going to be the start of a wonderful working relationship," Tony says, and the corners of her lips quirk up into something approaching a smile.

* * *

Working with Riri is comfortable in the same way that working with Peter is, maybe even a bit easier. Peter’s nice, but he has a tendency to babble and though Tony usually enjoys it, sometimes that can be a bit distracting. Riri is comfortable hunkering down and working in silence (or, at least, almost silence- there’s usually some kind of music running in the background. They switch off between genres, usually rock or classical for Tony, and hip-hop or country for Riri). When she has a question in the lab, it’s usually direct and to the point. She loves to learn, but she’s a bit more hands-on than Peter is.

Her eyes are brilliant, wide with curiosity, but unlike Peter, whose soft eyes and wide smile reminded him of Sam, her bitter smile and drive to learn reminds him of himself.

(And for once in his life, being reminded of himself is definitely a good thing.)

* * *

Peter swings by the Tower one day after school and finds his normal spot in the lab taken by a young girl with a gloved hand halfway in a turtle corpse.

“Um, hello,” Peter offers, dropping his backpack off next to the table.

“Mind grabbing me that scalpel?” the girl asks, not even bothering to glance in his direction, and Peter complies. She grins at him. “Thanks.” She then maneuvers a few things around the inside of the corpse and Peter isn’t entirely sure what she’s done- his specialty is insects and mechanics, not human biology- but then she’s turning to face him, removing her hand from the turtle. “Hi,” she says, “I’m Riri. And you are?”

“Peter. Peter Parker.”

“Oh,” the girl says, “Tony and Sam say you normally drop by on Saturdays.”

“Yeah, I got free a bit early today, Dr. Stark-Wilson doesn’t normally have anyone by on Thursdays-” He pauses, looks her up and down, finally noticing the red hoodie and afro. “You must be Riri Williams.”

“That’s my name,” the girl says with a sharp smile. “Don’t wear it out.”

Peter grins. "Of course not."

Riri gestures towards Peter's usual table. "You probably came to work, didn't you? Well, don't let me get in the way."

Peter nods and heads over. "Don't let me get in yours, either."

"Don't worry, I'll let you know if you are," Riri says.

- 

Tony enters the lab after a meeting, about an hour late, and finds Peter and Riri babbling excitedly about the organic composition of spiders and how to incorporate spider DNA into the composition of his suit, and he just kind of has to lean back and smile at his two favorite kids (besides Georgia, Ayana, and Daevon, the newest Wilson child, but that’s a bit different) working so well together.

God, how did Tony become so fond of these two teenagers? How did a year change him so drastically, to the point where he wants nothing more than to come home to Sam and these two kids, wants nothing more than dinner with Riri and Peter?

(Well, whatever happened, he's glad it did.)

* * *

The suspicions start when Riri starts hanging around longer and longer after her official lab hours. At first it’s the same kind of stuff that Peter does- watching sparring, grabbing a snack in the kitchen with Tony while continuing to babble about science, learning to cook from Sam- but soon enough it starts turning into longer things. When she spends multiple nights a week at the Tower, when she can be found here not just on Friday nights but also Saturday and Wednesday and Monday nights, Tony’s suspicions really start to climb. She says that her family doesn’t care, that they’re really slack with things and that they’re just happy that she’s making friends and socializing, but there’s something in her eyes when she says it. A flicker across her face. She only talks about her family when Tony directly asks, and even then she answers with vague descriptions.

For his co-workers and teammates, he would normally just leave them be. But she’s not an Avenger, despite the organic armor she’s building. She’s just a brilliant kid who Tony is quickly growing quite attached to, and he’s worried about her and her home life.

“Hey, Sam?” he asks one night.

“Yeah, Tones?” Sam replies, turning over so that he’s facing his husband.

“Do you think there’s something up with Riri’s home life?”

Sam frowns. "Well, there is something to be said for the fact that her parents let her stay out so long, but that's not too strange. Other than that, I didn’t notice anything too weird, why do you ask?”

Tony doesn’t know how to put his suspicions into words.  _Because she reminds me of myself. How she speaks of her family, how she doesn’t like going home to see them, how they don’t seem to give a shit what she does._

“Because, well, she's displaying some symptoms of a possibly negative home. Her parents don't seem to care no matter how much time she spends with us, and that's a bit worrying for a fourteen-year-old girl. And, well, there are some other, small things that I can't seem to get out of my head either."

"I'll watch for bad signs going forward," Sam promises, and Tony lets out a small sigh of relief.

"Thank you."

Sam's brow furrows. "No need to thank me," Sam says, an almost confused lilt to his voice. "I don't want any kid to be treated poorly."

Oh, Tony knows. He knows how much Sam has helped with the establishment of charities and group homes, how he's saved countless kids from bad parents when on domestic Falcon duties, how angry he gets about what happened to Tony as a kid.

"I understand," Tony says, because he does.

-

The next time Riri comes by, Tony intends to treat it like a normal night, to just watch and pick up ideas of what specifically is going on, so that they can combat it better.

Sam, however, seems to have different intentions as he walks through the lab that night at about nine.

"Riri," Sam asks, not even remotely subtle, "Do you need to text your parents?"

Riri's eyes don't narrow in suspicion- she's gotten too comfortable with them by now. Such a small question like this raises no red flags. "Nah," she says instead, "They won't really care."

"Won't really care?" Tony asks, voice carrying just a little bit of an edge to it. "What kind of parents wouldn't really care about their daughter not coming home four nights out of the week?"

Now Riri does freeze, her hand pausing over top of the suit she was just adjusting. "They're just pretty lax," Riri says, but there's something sharp in her words.

Sam raises an eyebrow. "Is that all it is?" he asks, and through just a little more prodding Tony and Sam come to learn that Riri’s a foster child living with some rather neglectful (and that's the best possible way to describe the people Tony pretty much wants to tear apart with his bare hands) foster parents, and Tony can’t resist helping. He’s already far too attached (and, if he lets himself admit it, kind of loves) to Riri, and he knows as well as any that no child deserves to live with a family that doesn't love you, with parents that hurt you instead of helping you.

It only takes a lawyer or two and a small stack of paperwork to make them Riri's legal guardians, and now Tony's family has grown just a little, again. Now he has a teenage girl moving into the penthouse with him and Sam, with Peter spending half of his nights here, and a year ago he never would have pictured this but here he is.

This is him, putting trust into others. This is him, letting people in and loving them.

* * *

When Riri moves into the Tower, all she brings with her is a trash bag and a backpack. When Tony greets her at the door, ready to help remove all the stuff that she needs to, he has to stop and stare, for just a moment. And he hates it about himself, but he makes her feel uncomfortable for even a second, but he's honestly blown away by how little she has.

Tony has never lacked for money, that's for sure. He was born to a millionaire and became a billionaire. She has had designer clothing and mansions and everything he could ever want for materially his entire life. He's used to giving gifts casually that total in the thousands of dollars.

Giving away hundreds of millions of dollars to various charities was nothing. Barely a dent.

And to see that this kid he cares so much about carries so little to her name- 

God, he is going to give her everything she ever could have wanted. All he wants, when he sees her is give her access to the resources that she never would have gotten. He's been doing that for ages, donating to foster care homes and orphanages and everything, but she? She's his kid. He's not her father, but she is his kid. And he wants to give her everything she could ever want. 

“You want me to show you your room?” He asks Riri, and she raises an eyebrow.

“You mean I'm not just staying in the guest room?” she asks, and he thinks about the room that she occasionally collapses in if she stays too late, the small room on the Avengers floor that's rather sparsely decorated and really just functions as the guest bedroom for family members that come to visit the Avengers. Nothing too shabby, to be sure, but surely nothing permanent or welcoming.

“Nah,” he says, “We have a different room for you upstairs. After all, you'll be staying a while, only wanted to give you a place to make your own home. You know, decorate as you like, really feel as if you have a place to stay.”

The way Riri looks at him almost feels like it should make your skin crawl, with how raw the shock in her eyes is. “Really?” she asks, and he nods.

“Of course,” he gives her a small smile. “You’re my and Sam’s kid now. You’re gonna get your own room.”

( _You’re going to get everything you want,_ he doesn’t say, but means, with all his heart.)

“Speaking of him,” she says, trying to rapidly change the subject, but he notices the way her shoulders are relaxing, just a little. “Where is the Lieutenant?”

“Doing some advisory work with the air force regarding current recon teams,” Tony says, "But he'll be back before dinner, which means we'll get to have some of Sam Wilson's famous cooking."

Riri actually smiles at this- a small small, but a smile nonetheless, far more comfortable than the discomfort and awkwardness she seemed to have been experiencing. "Much better than yours," she says, and he shrugs.

"We all have our strengths," he says, "And mine is  _not_ cooking, I can admit. I  _can_ make a mean smoothie, though."

This actually startles a short, shocked laugh out of Riri, and just the sound allows Tony to breathe a little better. "I'll take you up on that after you show me my room," she says, and the word "my" doesn't seem to feel too strange to her.

Well, they can make progress on that.

* * *

Over the next few weeks, Riri settles into the Tower, with Tony and Sam helping her makeover the room and get her feeling comfortable in her new home. Tony even offers to take Riri shopping for clothes, but Pepper swoops in immediately.

"Let Aunt Pepper take care of that," she says, and Riri blinks at her.

"'Aunt Pepper?'" she asks, and Pepper nods, expression reassuring.

"I've been told that I have a pretty decent sense of style," Pepper says, "And I'd love to get to know you better."

Riri gives Pepper a small, hesitant smile. "Sounds good to me," she says, and Pepper gives her a full-fledged grin.

"Sounds like a girl's night to me," Pepper says.

-

They get back late that night with a few bags of clothes in hand, laughing over something, and Tony looks up from his spot on the couch watching Law & Order with Sam (where he was  _not_ worrying about what was going on with Riri and Pepper, no he was not) to find Riri actually looking happy and comfortable again, like she sometimes does when she's in the lab.

"I like Aunt Pepper," Riri tells Sam and Tony, and Sam grins.

"She  _is_ the best," he says, and Pepper rolls her eyes at Sam.

"No need to suck up, Lieutenant," Pepper says, fondness clear in her voice anyway.

* * *

Riri walks in on Sam one day and freezes as she spots his bionic leg on the ground and his amputated stump airing out on the chair. “Is that one of Tony’s prostheses?” She asks, eyes lighting up in fascination. She seems unfazed by the (while not outright disturbing) unsettling sight of his stump.

Sam nods. “One of the first Stark Industries made, back right when they were converting the company from a war machine into a creator. This generation of limbs went to soldiers before they went to the public.” He corrects himself. “Well, the design is from then, anyway. My prosthetic had to remade after the Battle of Sokovia last year.” He grins. “I got to help with the new redesign.”

“Cool,” she says, “I’m just wondering if there’s a way to make them cheaper. Tony’s pumping lots of money into orphanages, but the limbs are still often too much for the poverty-stricken to afford. Veterans get them free courtesy of Stark Industries, but those who are victims of other accidents often don’t. Perhaps if we used more aluminum and less steel?” She tilts her head a bit in question, as she has a tendency to do, and Sam has to blink.

“That’s a really good point,” he says, and gives her a proud smile. "You should take it to Tony and Pepper- they'd be completely willing to implement it using the Stark Foundation."

She blinks at his expression, seemingly confused by it for a few moments before giving him a small smile back. "I'll ask."

"But in the meantime...do you want to look at it a bit closer?" Riri's mouth drops open a little, and he grins. "I know that gleam in your eyes," he says, "I recognize it as the same one that Tony gets in his eyes when he wants to investigate something. Feel free to poke and prod at my leg all you want."

"Are you sure, Sam?" Riri asks, eyes wide.

Sam nods. "Yeah, I'm sure. In fact, I think it'd be kind of fun. If you're interested. Hands on experience and all."

Riri grins. "That sounds great," she says, and slips her satchel (the one she carries around the penthouse- not her backpack full of school supplies, but her work satchel full of tools and her Stark tablet with notes for all of the projects she's working on with Tony and Peter and by herself) off of her shoulders. She pulls out a good old-fashioned magnifying glass and walks straight up to Sam's leg. From there she begins to use her magnifying glass and a pair of titanium picks to look at the finer details of Sam's bionic leg.

And Sam just sits back and watches, a small, proud smile on his lips. Watching Riri observe, note, and work is the same as watching Tony or Peter working around the lab, like watching Natasha, Bucky, and Clint train and move on missions, like watching Thor wield Mjolnir- it's watching an artist create their masterpiece, watching the mind of an utter master at work.

* * *

Sometimes being a guardian is hard, and sometimes it’s easy in ways Tony really wishes he wasn’t able to connect with Riri on.

A ringing noise wakes Tony up one night, where he has only a couple of seconds to realize that Sam is blinking awake next to him.

"Sirs," JARVIS says, almost a note of concern to his voice, "Miss Riri is at your door. I do believe she is having a panic attack."

Within a second Sam and Tony- who are both far too familiar with panic attacks- are out of bed and sprinting for the door, which swings open to reveal Riri sitting on the floor with her back against the wall opposite the door, eyes blown wide with her pajama-covered knees tucked up against her torso and her hand held to her chest. She’s clearly in a state of panic, unsure what to do.

"I'm sorry," Riri says, breathing ragged, "I-I didn't know what to do."

Sam and Tony instantly drop down next to her, one of them squatting on either side of her.

"Do you want us to hold you?" Sam asks. “To stay back? Everyone handles panic attacks differently."

"I…" she says, and flounders. "I've never had someone to come to before. My foster parents...they- they wouldn't help me. They only hurt."

So Tony takes stock of the situation. Riri is clearly conscious enough to talk to them, even if her words stumble over themselves on their way past her lips. She's doing pretty okay for her first panic attack, and she's at least lucid enough to understand their questions and advice.

"We'll only do something that you're comfortable with," Tony swears. "But first- we should probably get your breathing back to normal, okay?" Riri jerks out a nod, and Tony gives her a reassuring smile despite the anxiety coursing through him. "Match your breathing with mine. Breath in slowly..." And he starts to take deep breaths, hoping she'll mimic him. She does as he continues to give her instructions, and the shaking in her limbs begins to fade away as her breathing slows to match his, until it's eventually to a normal pace. Then he smiles at her. "Better?"

She nods. "A lot, yeah." Though she's clearly not entirely out of it, she does sincerely look a lot better.

"Can one of us hug you?" Sam asks, and Riri nods. Sam leans in and pulls her into a hug, and Tony rocks back a little, off of his feet that have just now realized that they're aching from squatting for so long. He sits down and lets out a deep breath as he watches as Sam holds Riri.

If Tony could, he would do anything to remove the fact that he and his husband and Riri can connect on this specific topic. He would get rid of the memories of abuse and the memories of war, slice out the PTSD and the panic attacks and the nightmares. He would do anything to make them happier, make them feel safer in their own minds.

But he can't, so in the meantime he just tries to make things better. He tries to relieve their pain as much as possible.

(And, to be honest, they do the same for him.)

* * *

It’s Sam who finally suggests the idea of adoption.

"What do you think of adopting Riri?" Sam asks one day when they're both in the lab, Sam working on Redwing and Tony on a new model of a solar panel.

Tony freezes. "What?"

"We're already her legal guardians," Sam says, "It does seem like the next logical step."

Tony doesn't know how to process this. Removing Riri from her abusive foster parents and giving her a home- yeah, that was the logical, obvious step. You don't have to be a superhero to want to help a kid in that kind of situation, especially one you care about.

But to  _officially_ adopt Riri, to become her father, to take on being that kind of role model and parental figure in her life- that's a bit beyond a transaction. That's a continuous process, full of love and support and not fucking up so that you don't fuck up an innocent child. That's relying on Tony not to be Howard, not to be Obadiah, not to ruin a kid with his bad decisions.

“I can be the mentor, the crazy uncle, whatever you want,” Tony says, fingers fidgeting against his legs. He wants a robot to repair, a device to invent, a computer to code. He doesn’t want these feelings, pulling him back to the days before Sam and Rhodey and Pepper. Before he had people who supported him, back when all he had was his father’s words and fists. “But I can't be a father.”

“This is because of Howard, isn’t it?” Sam asks, cutting straight to the heart of the matter, and Tony hesitates. It is, yes, but it's also because of other reasons. It's because after everything Howard did, Tony still put his faith in another man, another mentor, another father figure, who did nothing but betray and hurt him.

"Not... _just_  because of Howard," Tony says, and Sam's brow furrows for a moment before understanding crosses his face.

"Because of Stane, as well, right?" Sam asks, and he's never used Obadiah's first name. Tony gets his reasons why- Sam has always said that the man who violated Tony, who betrayed him and ripped his heart from his chest, should never get the privilege of Sam using his first name. “You think that teenage girl in there feels any more confident about this than you do?” Sam asks, tone gentle. “No, of course she doesn't. She grew up in foster homes, had some pretty shitty foster parents who didn't appreciate her for the wonderful person she is. She's just like you, Tones."

And Tony thinks about Riri, about the way she flinches from certain things, about the way she still doesn't quite trust them with certain weaknesses and vulnerabilities. He thinks of how she has that bitter drive to prove herself, to be more than what people expect her to be."

“You don't have to be perfect," Sam continues, "You just have to be there for her.”

“You’d make the perfect father,” Tony says, and he means it. God, does he mean it. Sam's so good with Riri and Peter, calm and patient and kind and firm when he needs to be.

Sam leans his head against Tony’s shoulder. "So would you," Sam says, "You care so much about Riri and Peter. You're already a really good paternal figure to them. Now you can just make it official for one of them."

But then, fuck, there's also- "What about Stark Industries?" Tony asks, "I don't want to put that kind of pressure on her, of having to inherit all of that."

"Riri can handle a lot more than anyone gives her credit for," Sam points out. "She got an internship at Stark Industries at age  _fourteen_. She's already got deferred admission to MIT. She's pretty fucking amazing- and besides, she'll have years before she inherits anything of ours. She'll have time to grow into any position she'll end up taking."

There is still anxiety in Tony's heart, but sitting alongside it is also now a bit of confidence. "You've got a good point, there," he says, and Sam grins.

"I often do."

"Then let's do this," Tony says, "Let's ask her if she wants to be adopted."

"Let's do it," Sam says, entwining his fingers with Tony's. 

-

They reach Riri's door and it's open, revealing Riri sitting on her bed, jotting down some notes onto her Stark Tablet.

“Riri,” Tony says, “We have something to ask you.”

Her face immediately slumps and her body curls in as she drops the tablet on the red bedspread- a natural defense mechanism, cultivated by years of abuse. “You're kicking me out?”

“No, no, of course not!” Tony protests, stumbling over his words in a way he hasn't since he woke up from one of Maximoff’s visions of Sam dying. Riri relaxes, though expression is still curious. “We were actually wondering if you'd want to, ah-" The words dry up in his throat as he stares at Riri, at this girl who could very well become his and Sam's daughter.

So Sam, always better at handling the more personal, emotional things than Tony is, finishes his question. “We were wondering if you’d mind if we adopted you,” Sam says, and Riri’s jaw drops.

“You’re shitting me?” Riri asks. Her face is open, unguarded for a single moment, and her vulnerability hits Tony over the head like a mirror smashed into his face. He knows that fear, that raw expression, so fucking well.

“We’re not. I mean, you’re already color coordinated,” Tony jokes, pointing to Riri’s red hoodie, black leather jacket, and black jeans, and it's not the deepest thing to say, but it is the  _right_  thing to say. Riri actually cracks a smile at that.

“That I am,” she says, with that same smile that Tony always carries when he's amused by something.

"We'd love to have you be officially part of the family," Tony says, smile going sincere and a little raw. "We really would. We'd love to be able to call you our daughter. If that's okay with you."

(This is Tony laying all of his cards on the table, making his side clear and being completely open. This is him, offering up the piece of paper that would make him  _more_.)

“Okay,” Riri says, “Yes. I'd love to be adopted by you.”

Tony's mouth splits into a wide grin, and Tony's arms fidget at his sides, as if he's unsure of whether or not hugging her would be appropriate. Riri, on her end, also seems a bit unsure.

Well, Sam's not always the first to go for physical affection, but he is certainly more emotionally assertive than either Tony or Riri is. So he steps forward and pulls them both into a hug. And Sam can feel them squeeze back against him, embracing each other.

-

They sign the papers within a few weeks- they were already legally her guardians, due to the whole foster home thing, but now it's more official.

And so now Tony has a daughter. Riri is his and Sam's daughter, not just their ward, and adopting Riri is terrifying, but to be honest, Tony is incredibly proud to do it.

Howard Stark might have been a great man, but he was not a good one. Tony never wants to be the kind of father that his was to him. He wants to be supportive and encouraging and respectful, wants to give a child the kind of childhood he never got. He wants to give his children more the kind of childhood that Sam got, more normal with parents who loved and respected him.

So as a result of this fear of fucking up his daughter, Tony doesn’t want to overexpose Riri to the media. She may be a lot older than an infant, but he wants her to get as normal and natural an adolescence as possible.

“I get it,” Sam says when Tony explains his perspective. “But just being in the spotlight won’t damage her as much as you think it will."

Tony snorts. "What about me?" he says.

"Whatever's wrong with you- and I don't think that there's anything wrong with you, Tones- it's most likely the fault of your father and Stane's manipulations, not as a result of controlled exposure to paparazzi as a result of your parents' support of you. And besides, hiding her away, never having her fathers attend her science fairs and field trips and quiz bowl tournaments- don’t you think that could hurt as much as the exposure might?"

Well, fuck. That was rather blunt. Tony sometimes forgets just how capable Sam is of that, when he's usually so gentle. 

“We just have to find a healthy balance,” Tony says, and Sam nods.

* * *

Riri comes home one day that May and drops an envelope on the kitchen table, smile proud. "Guess who's going to school with Peter in the fall?" she asks, voice nearly sing-songing.

"Lemme guess," Tony says, "Barton is."

Sam rolls his eyes at his husband before turning to Riri. "Congrats, honey!" he calls out loudly, offering out his arms in a hug.

And Riri steps forward into the hug without a flinch or a batted eye, too excited to hesitate. "I can't believe it," she says, voice nearly hitching in her happiness, and Tony remembers the flint-eyed girl he found in his lab in January.

"Sure MIT can wait?" he asks with a teasing smile.

Riri nods against Sam's chest, her afro rubbing against his button-up. "It can wait," she says, "It can definitely wait a little while."

* * *

Lab afternoons and nights are the best, especially nowadays when they become entire lab  _days_ because it's summer. With no grades or classes to distract, they spend their time buried in the lab after school.

On one lab day, the lab door opens and Tony, around the corner from Peter and Riri's lab tables, lets out a small shriek. "Rhodey, how've you been, man?" Tony asks, voice clearly excited and a bit fond, and Riri and Peter freeze in their work.

"I was great up until I heard that you acquired two children without telling me. I'm here to meet the niece you adopted while I was out  _and_  the boy who you've insisted on claiming as your personal intern, which I _know_ means that you've nearly adopted him as well," Rhodey says, and Riri and Peter both look up from their tables in the lab, around the corner in the back. Riri's table is a bit more cluttered than Peter's, with her tools interspersed with notes on various scraps of paper and a few small terrariums with various species of turtle and caterpillar. Peter's table is also similarly cluttered, though maybe a slight bit more organized, with the parts of his web shooters laid out alongside the computer chips and the parts of his suit. The table in between them, with their shared project, is covered in scraps of metal and small bugs in various small living containers.

All in all, Riri and Peter aren't entirely sure of what kind of impression they're going to make. Peter's at least met Rhodey before, back in October, but Rhodey's been so busy over the last half year with work in Europe that he hasn't been able to visit, so Riri has never met him despite her fathers' stories about him.

"Well, they're right around the corner," Tony's familiar voice says, and footsteps echo until he and Rhodey are turning the corner into Riri and Peter's workspace. "Meet the kids," Tony says, smile proud, and Riri gets to meet Tony's best friend for the first time.

James "Rhodey" Rhodes is dressed down in a leather jacket and jeans, like Sam often does, but he carries his military bearing in a far straighter back than Sam does. It makes sense, considering their current career paths. 

"Riri and Peter," Rhodey says with a smile, stepping forward to shake each of their hands as he addresses them. "Well, I've already met our dear spiderling, but it's nice to you as well, Riri."

"Nice to meet you too, sir," Riri says with a small smile. She's heard a lot about Rhodey from Tony, and she's rather interested in learning more.

"You don't have to call me 'sir,'" Rhodey says, then gives Peter a sideways  _look_ as he says: "Or Lt. Rhodes, or Lt. Iron Patriot, either. Just James, or Rhodey if you'd like, as you two are basically family at this point."

"We can really call you 'Rhodey?'" Riri asks, raising an eyebrow.

Rhodey shrugs and grins. "Tony certainly does, and you're his family, basically, so I guess the name has to stick."

Riri thinks back to the father's day card she and Peter gave Tony and she has to admit to herself that, yes, they're basically a family. "Nice to meet you, then, Uncle Rhodey," she says with a mischievous smirk that mirrors her father's, and Tony gives her a similar expression right back.

"Nice to meet you too, kid," Rhodey says, then looks to Tony. "Now, if you guys don't mind, James and I have got to go catch up with Romanoff, Barton, and the rest of the team. Turns out he missed you guys quite a lot. We'll meet you guys for dinner, alright?"

"Sound good to you, kids?" Tony asks, and Peter and Riri exchange a glance.

"Sounds great to us," Riri answers.

-

September hits and Riri and Peter go back to school.

Riri's first day of school, she enters the cafeteria to find Peter waving at her from the table across the cafeteria. At the table sit Ned and MJ, who she's met plenty of times over the summer when they've visited the Tower with Peter.

"This is Riri," Peter says, "She interns with me at Stark Industries."

MJ sends Riri a knowing smile, and Ned just grins at her. Riri gets it- she's smirking, just a little bit, at Peter's awkward avoidance of her true parentage. The girl Riri doesn't recognize, though, says, "Well then, she should definitely try out for the decathalon team. With a quarter of the team graduating at the end of last year, we need some new blood."

Ned looks a bit nervous. "Jess, you don't need to make us sound like a cult."

"We definitely are, though," MJ says, and Peter smiles at his girlfriend of half a year.

"And you're our beautiful leader."

Riri blinks at Peter, who's blushing more than MJ is, who just gives Peter a small smile. "I'd love to join," Riri says, "Peter always says that it's lot of fun."

Flash Thompson, at the end of the table, snorts. "Penis rarely shows up- how would he know if it's fun?"

Riri's gaze instantly snaps to Flash. "What the fuck did you just call him?"

Flash wilts just a little under her gaze. "Penis Parker- it's his nickname."

Riri's gaze goes hard at the words. Riri has a lot more in common with her fathers than just panic attacks and a higher-than-average intelligence. Riri has never been one for bullies. Flash may be a rich dick three years older than her, but she doesn't care.

Peter is Riri's best friend and basically an older brother to her, and though he's a superhero, he's too sweet for his own good. He's too nice- though he's more than ready and willing to stand up for others, he's not good at standing up for himself. 

"From what I've heard, Flash," Riri says, nose wrinkling in disgust at his name. "The nickname "Penis" would be more accurate for dicks like you than nice people like Peter."

MJ snorts as Flash's face goes white. "I knew there was a reason I liked you."

"Don't worry," Riri says, "I'll keep them coming."

-

The first decathalon competition is a month into the school year. Sam and Tony attend, wanting to support both kids, but they very quickly notice a very strange pattern: Riri's always one question below peter- almost suspiciously so. It's not just once, or twice- it is every single tournament, every single competition, a single answer behind Peter.

And that kind of consistency- that has to be purposeful. That can't have been on accident.

"You noticed?" Tony asks Sam that night when they're getting ready for bed.

Sam nods. "She's pulling just one wrong answer below him."

"Why do you think she's doing that?" Tony asks, "Do you think that she's trying not to offend him or something?"

"I'd have to assume so," Tony says, "I've seen her absolutely destroy award-winning scientists in debates before. She's not one to tone down her intelligence for just anyone."

- 

So they sit Riri down for dinner that night (a lovely dish of chicken tikka masala, Sam's favorite dish) and apparently she's rather good at parsing out their expressions (or just rather paranoid due to her past) because she immediately just sets down her fork.

"Alright," Riri says with a resigned sigh, "What did I do wrong?"

"Nothing, kid," Tony immediately says, wanting to make it clear from the outright that she's not in any kind of trouble. He doesn't want to trigger any sort of bad response or bad memories regarding past parents.

"We just want to know why you're purposefully trailing Peter in decathlon competitions," Sam explains.

Riri winces and bites her lip. "Well, I was hoping that no one would catch onto that."

"We're a bit smarter than we look, kid," Tony says with a small smile.

Riri sighs, pushing her fork around her plate a bit. "Well, he's my best friend," Riri says, "The first one I've ever had. I don't want to ruin that."

Well, that explains a lot. Riri, as confident as she is about her own skills in lab, has had a woeful lack of affirmation about her interpersonal skills.

 

And apparently Sam is on the same page, because he starts to explain: "We all have our strengths, Riri. I know you're father is smarter than me, and I'm okay with that." Sam sends a sideways smirk at his husband. "After all, I'm a much better cook, and I can definitely kick his ass in a sparring match."

"He's also more humble than me," Tony teases, and Sam winks at him before continuing.

"If I knew he was purposefully dumbing himself down just make me feel better, I would get a bit pissed. I don't want him to waste his talents. I want him to be the best and most successful version of himself he can be. I admire him for his strengths and I encourage him to expand on them, not to sacrifice for me. Healthy relationships, romantic or platonic, are built on honesty and mutual respect."

Riri winces as she takes a bite of chicken. "I didn't do that."

"But it's okay," Tony says, adding to Sam's advice. "Because as long as you realize that you were doing it, you can change your behavior." He gives her a proud smile. "Show Peter the respect you have for him by utterly _crushing_ him in decathalon tournaments."

Riri smiles at Tony. "Then that's definitely one way to do it." 

There's a knock at the door to the kitchen, and they all look up to see Peter standing there. "Hey, Riri?" Peter says, "I kinda wanted to talk to you about something. Am I interrupting dinner? 'Cause I can just talk to you tomorrow."

Sam shakes his head in answer as Riri looks up at Peter, clear nervousness in her eyes, and Tony understands her reluctance to be vulnerable and open. He's so proud of Riri when she eventually says, "No, we can talk now," stands up from the table, and heads out into the hallway to talk to Peter.

Tony lets out a deep breath once their voices fade down the hallway. "I think we handled that pretty well," he says.

Sam nods. "I think we did, too."

Tony holds up his glass. "Cheers to us as parents."

Sam grins and clinks his glass against Tony's. "Cheers to us."

-

After the whole decathalon mess, Riri makes an effort to make friends other than Peter. She gets to know Gwen Stacy, the only other new sophomore at Midtown Tech. Gwen has a love for music and a desire to study different ways it can be utilized in physics, and she and Riri get along rather great. Soon enough she's gotten permission from her fathers to invite Gwen over whenever she wants, a privilege which she takes full advantage of.

She still cares about Peter- he's still her closest friend- but she's branching out. She's making sure that she has other people in her life other than Avengers and superheroes and her dads.

And it's a bit of a relief, honestly. For so long, Riri has had no one. And now she not only has two fathers who care about her, but a brother-figure in Peter, friends in Ned, MJ, and Gwen, and plenty of extended family members in the Avengers, Pepper, Rhodey, and even Aunt May and Happy.

She's finally finding her place. 

-

Then, in October, May Parker has a massive health scare. She collapses at work, pains in her stomach, and is rushed into surgery in order to fix the massive bleeding inside of her.

The surgery seems to be successful, but that doesn't mean that it's any less anxiety inducing. Aunt May suffered an aortic aneurysm rupture, which has a mortality rate of 90%. If she hadn't been literally working in a hospital, she would have died. Point blank. There is no arguing with the facts.

Sam finds Peter curled into a ball next to Aunt May’s hospital bed. “I can't lose her,” Peter says, voice hoarse from crying, “Sam, I've already lost my parents and Uncle Ben, I can _not_ to lose the only person I have left-”

“Peter,” Sam says, trying his hardest to keep his voice gentle, “You have us.”

Peter looks up at him, gaze completely lost, and Sam knows how to deal with Tony’s nightmares. He knows how to deal with Riri’s panic attacks. But Peter? He hasn't had to help Peter through something like this before-

Oh wait, he has. Sam remembers the anniversary of Peter's Uncle's death, when he and Tony had helped Peter through it. Hugging him, spending the evening with him- that had worked.

So Sam pulls Peter into a hug, and Peter turns and clings to him. It is in this moment, with Peter trembling against him, that Sam is struck by just how young Peter is. It is not a fact that has ever been lost on Sam, but it is a fact that is easy to forget when faced with Spider-Man and how easily Peter can beat most of the Avengers in sparring matches in training.

Now, though, he is just a kid, watching as the only parental figure he has hovers on the brink of death.

So Sam just holds Peter close and lets him cry into Sam's shoulder, giving him what little comfort he can in the face of something like this.

- 

Tony opens the door to the hospital room and finds his husband and Peter asleep against each other, Sam's arm still wrapped around Peter's shoulders. Peter looks so small and fragile, unlike he does with the suit. It really hits Tony just how young Peter is, just how much of a teenager he is. If May had died, if she had worked anywhere other than a hospital and this had happened-

Well, then, Peter would have been just a child, forced to bury the last of four parental figures. He would have been alone, too young to deal with something that even the oldest people can't brace themselves to have to do.

Tony can't let that happen. He can't let yet another child go through something so traumatizing, not when he can help it.

- 

After it's all over, after May’s out of the hospital and everything is pretty much back to normal, Tony is the one to suggest that they sign on as Peter's secondary legal guardians. You know, just in case anything absolutely horrible happens.

“We’ll ask May first, of course,” Tony says, “And see if she's okay with it. But I think it would be really good for Peter to know that he has a lot of people in his corner, and that all of us are his family, not because of some sense of Duty because he's an Avenger, but because we chose him.

Sam looks at Tony, at the bright fervor in his eye, and he smiles. “It looks like you really have learned a lot from Riri,” he says proudly.

Tony looks at him and gives Sam a small, fond smile. “Yeah,” he says, “I've learned a lot from Riri. But I've also learned a lot from you.”

- 

May takes one look at the paperwork Tony had the lawyer draw up and nods. “I want Peter to be taken care of if something happens to me,” she says.

Beyond that, it only takes about a week for Tony to offer for May and Peter to live in the Tower, if they want. They're all eating dinner together at the Parkers' house, the Stark-Wilsons having brought take-out, and Tony asks the question to May.

"Would you be comfortable with it?" Aunt May asks Peter, and he just looks at Riri.

"You okay with it?" he asks, and she grins.

"Of course," she says, "We've got  _plenty_  of room on the top floor and who wouldn't want to share a penthouse with their best friend?"

Peter grins, holds out a hand for a high-five, and she returns it without hesitation.

"I guess that's it, then," Aunt May says, giving her nephew a tired smile. The surgery and recovery has been a bit of a process, one that's led to her being not quite as bright and energetic as usual.

"Thanks, Aunt May," Peter says to her, then looks to Tony and Sam. "And you too, Dr. and Mr. Stark-Wilson."

"Kid," Sam says, "How many times do we have to tell you to call us Tony and Sam?"

"At least a dozen more?" Peter suggests, and Riri laughs.

"I don't think that even that will make it stick," Riri says, and Peter raises an eyebrow.

"Wanna bet?" he asks, and she smirks over her lo mein noodles.

"Always," she says, and everything feels almost like it's back to normal.

-

The day Peter moves in, Riri greets him and Aunt May at the door. “Want some help moving everything?” she asks, and Peter grins.

"Always," he says, and she smiles back.

"Show me where I can find the boxes," Riri says, and Peter gestures behind him.

"Right this way," he says, and she follows right out.

-

This year, date nights become decathlon nights. Home cooked meals, on school nights, at least, become takeout nights. Tony, Sam, and Aunt May end up co-parenting Peter and kind of Riri as well, as most decisions having to do with Peter eventually end up affecting Riri and vice versa.

Sam tries to drive kids to school when he can. He's retired from everything save being a superhero and overseeing certain charities, and as long as he's not on a mission or providing volunteer training sessions at the local military bases, then he's free to help the kids out. And being normal like this- Sam loves it. And so do the kids.

Tony goes to every decathlon he can, usually in thick-rimmed fake glasses, a loose MIT sweatshirt, and some makeup to disguise his real identity as much as possible. He wants the nights to be about his kids, not about him.

Aunt May often gets into long-winded conversations about human anatomy with Clint and Natasha, as well as discussions with Clint and Lara (who moved into the Tower with the kids a couple years back) about the pains of raising children nowadays. It's almost like she's always been a part of the strange family in the Tower.

Riri can often be found quizzing Scott Lang about insects over the phone, grilling him for answers about insect anatomy and asking him about his daughter. When the phone calls are over, she often invites Gwen over to discuss how music and insects can intersect to create something utterly beautiful.

Peter invites his friends over plenty, bringing Ned and MJ up to the penthouse to work on homework, teach to cook, and battle in Mario Kart. Soon enough there are regular competitions of Mario Kart going on between Ned, MJ, Peter, and the Avengers, with Ned actually taking a surprising number of wins.

Their family is as normal as a superhero, billionaire, blended family can be, and it's absolutely beautiful.

- 

But even after everything, after gaining a daughter and pretty-much-a-son, after dealing with his issues, after forming an Avengers untainted by past prejudices, after saving the whole goddamn world a few more times, Tony still has nightmares. He still has panic attacks. There are still some days when he's going about his day, just as usual, and some small thing will trigger a bad memory, cause a memory to explode through his brain until his whole world is burning, with desert sand, with ice.

There are some nights when he wakes up, gasping for breath, and realizes that he's in his bed, that his chest has healed a long long time ago, that that weight on his chest is not the crushing weight of a shield and his own armor bending in on him, but instead Sam's warm arm and the weight of his dog tags around Tony's neck. And there are some nights where Tony is bitter. He hates the fact that even after a couple of years, after all the ways that he's grown and healed and made himself a family and a happy ending in the world, the past can still haunt him. The scars stay.

He hates the fact that it's not just him, either. It's Sam who will sometimes be the one who wakes up in the middle of the night, with a frown on his lips and a desperate cry for someone to  _please, God, save Riley_. Sometimes the door will open and it will be Riri standing there, with a nightmare about a bad set of foster parents. Sometimes, it will even be Peter with a bad dream about a criminal case that ended badly or the memory of his uncle's death.

Tony's family is not a perfect one. It is not always a happy one. Something that Tony has learned, and that he has learned rather well, is that loving somebody is about being there during the bad times as well as the good. Is about seeing the worst, most broken parts of a person, and accepting those. It is about wanting to help that person even when they are screaming at you from a bad nightmare or glaring at you, whether in teenage petulance or in all-too-adult resentment. Loving someone is about taking the bad with the good, taking the weaknesses with the strength, and knowing that no matter what, you will still be there. That they will still be there. Making a family is sometimes rough, but god is it worth it.

The family Tony came into the world with was shit. But the family’s he found along the way- the family that he chose and that chose him in return- is worth far more than whatever biology would have given him.

-

"Dad!" Riri shouts, and Tony can't resist his smile as he heads around the corner of the lab to the section that Riri has carved out for herself. She only started using "Dad" and "Pa" to refer to Tony and Sam, respectively, a couple of weeks ago.

He enters her part of the lab to find a new set of armor, nearly entirely golden in color, assembled and hovering in the air. The armor has a number of similarities to the Iron Man suit, but it is far more insectoid-like in the way the pieces of armor are placed together, more flexible and graceful in its movements and far more aerodynamic, clearly engineered more for stealth, agility, and speed than sheer weapons capability.

"Her name is Ironheart," Riri says, smile proud, and god, Tony can't express how proud he is of her. To be fifteen and to have created such a thing? It took him into his early forties to make his suit. Sure, she has his schematics to work off of, but clearly a large portion of the engineering was her and her love of studying the intersection of biology and mechanical engineering. "Just like yours."

"And look at this," Riri says, and moves the arm to show off three small panels paralleled on each side of the torso. One is red, one is silver, and one is blue. "It's for you three- red for Iron Man, silver for Falcon, blue for Spiderman. Most of the suit is mine, but you all helped. A lot. And I wanted to show that." She then lets the arm fall back into place, and Tony's chest feels so fucking big, fondness warming it nearly as much as his pride is.

"It's fucking amazing," Tony says, stepping forward to get a closer look at the suit. "Where'd you come up with the idea for the shape of the chestplate?"

"Well, I was having a fantastic conversation with Scott about the strength of insectoid exoskeletons-"

"Scott?" Tony asks distantly, distracted by the absolute beauty of the welding on the seams of the armor.

"Scott Lang, Dad? You know, Ant-Man?"

Oh, right. Ant-Man. There are so many Avengers and associate-Avengers (like Peter, ones who mainly focus on one area of the U.S. or their respective countries) that some of them sometimes slip his mind.

(Well, if Scott inspired _this_ , then Tony should definitely remember him.)

" _Right_ ," Tony says, "Scott Lang. Ant-Man. I totally remember him."

Riri rolls her eyes. "No, you don't."

"No, I don't," Tony admits.

Riri lets out an actual laugh, clear and happy. Tony loves hearing sounds like that from the people he loves, true signs that they are happy and healthy. "Never change, Dad," she says, "Never change." 

-

And then they get to December 12th, the first Saturday of winter break, and they're back on the roof, eight years after their wedding.

They've only been married for eight years, but what an eight years it's been. Acquiring two children, Sam becoming a superhero, the Avengers blowing up, everything with Steve and Bucky and Siberia and well, fuck it, everything. Their world has grown so much in the past eight years, and they have become so much more than just themselves.

Which, boiled down, means they have a much larger crowd to invite to their vow renewal than their original wedding. No longer is it just Sam’s siblings, their kids, his parents, and Tony’s few friends (Pepper, Tony, and Happy). No, this time around, there's a much bigger crowd. You have the original crowd from the original wedding, yes, but you also have the Avengers, Laura and the kids, Bucky, Sharon Carter, Maria Hill and Phil Coulson (in the background, and how the fuck did that happen?) and, of course, the kids. Because how could Tony and Sam renew their vows without their two kids there to witness it? Without Riri and Peter, they'd be missing an absolutely massive chunk of their family.

So they're getting their vows renewed, and in a much bigger ceremony, complete with their kids and all their kids’ friends, and this time around, instead of having Pepper and Vince as their best woman and best man, they’re instead having their kids be their best man and best woman.

Now, it was a bit of a fight as to who would have which kid representing them, but in the end Tony thinks that they made the right decision. First off, both the kids know that they love them equally and that their strange living situation doesn't dictate one of them being more their kid than the other. Instead, Tony and Sam ended up picking their best man and best woman for very small reasons. Riri is Tony's best woman because, to be honest, she reflects him more in personality and in drive than Peter does. And Peter's more like Sam, if one is looking at him from his gentleness and his bright optimism in the world. And letting the kids represent each of them separately almost represents how each one of them ended up with in this family. 

And as for clothing: while, for the wedding itself, they just wore their nicest suits, for this one there's a bit more planning and drama involved. They're wearing matching dark gray Armani suits, though Sam has a black button-up and maroon tie underneath, while Tony is wearing a red button-up and gold tie. Their cufflinks, though barely noticeable, were bought from a jewelry line by Clarissa Fray, a local artist who is donating all profits from the line to domestic abuse shelters in the area. Sam's are the Falcon ones, silver and featuring a stylized pair of wings, while Tony's are the Iron Man ones, gold and carved like the Iron Man mask. (After all, what's a wedding without a bit of playful fun?)

And beside them are Riri and Peter, dressed to the nines. Riri is wearing a red jumpsuit with a gold belt while Peter is wearing a maroon suit with grey button-down, without a tie. To the untrained eye there may not seem to be a color scheme to the wedding party, but to anyone who has spent enough time with the little family will understand their sense of humor and what the colors of their clothes are referencing.

As for the officiant- once again, Sam sister’s officiating. After all, why fix something that ain't broke? Sara embraced the role with gusto the first time around, and this time is no different.

So the vows go down again, this time with Peter and Riri there as unofficial witnesses, and Tony never expected to have two kids as wonderful as them. Peter and Riri have taken to their roles like ducks to water, or like Stark-Wilsons to the sky- they do it perfectly, smiling proudly and saying the words with utter conviction.

Tony's first wedding was beautiful, but this- this is perfect.

- 

They get to the reception and, of course, the first dance is between Tony and Sam. Then the next few dances are with Peter and Riri, the first one with the first one with their best woman and best man, and then the next one with Tony and Sam switching off, taking the other kid. Tony has got to admit that as much as he loves his first wedding reception, it was a bit small. And it was just with Sam and his nieces, really, that that he danced with. Tonight, though, he gets to dance with both of his kids, and with a whole bunch of other people, from May Parker to the Avengers. It is one of the most hilarious experiences of his life to dance the Cha Cha Slide with Thor, and one of the most terrifyingly wonderful to have Natasha lead him through a waltz.

And God, Tony wouldn't give this up for a thing. Tonight is one of the absolute best nights of his life, bar none. Even his graduation from college, either of his graduations from college, weren't this absolutely glorious. Having this giant family with him, to celebrate his and Sam's happiness, that's something that Tony never could have dreamed of in a million years. The idea that a whole group of people love and support him and want nothing but his happiness- well, up until a couple of years ago Tony doesn't think he ever could have believed that this would be thing.

"Oh," Sam says as they dance together across the room, "You're thinking too seriously again, aren't you?"

Tony raises an eyebrow. "Whatever gave you such an idea?"

"It's that crease between your eyebrows," Sam says with a knowing smile, "Your face always does that when you're thinking too hard."

Tony is almost in awe of how well Sam knows him, but they  _have_  been together for eight years. He knows that there are things about Sam that he knows that no one else does, small tics that no one else will be able to pick up on. It's no wonder that Sam knows the same about him.

"Well, you're right," Tony concedes, "I was thinking. I was thinking about how much I love you and how lucky I am to have accepted your proposal all those years ago."

"Well,  _I'm_ lucky that you said yes," Sam says. 

"We're both so lucky to have this," Tony agrees, and Sam leans in and presses a gentle kiss to his lips.

"I love you so much," Sam says.

"I love you more," Tony says, smile teasing.

"I love you most, Dr. Anthony Stark-Wilson," Sam says, saying the words almost like a promise. (And in a way, they are.)

"Well, I love you to infinity, Lt. Samuel Stark-Wilson," Tony replies, and his words are definitely an oath, just the like the vows they just renewed, just like the vows they first said eight years ago.

-

And so everyone dances away into the night, celebrating and partying to their hearts content. And Tony Stark gets to be there, surrounded by people he loves, people who love him right back.

There is no Snap. There is no Thanos, interrupting his happy ending. There is no Civil War in which his team and his family are torn apart. There is no need for him to watch his son die in front of his face, for him to never meet his daughter. No, this is a story, a life, where Tony Stark gets to be happy. This is a story where Sam Wilson gets to be happy, where Riri Williams and Peter Parker get to be happy and don't have to see yet another father and mentor figure die before his time.

This is a story without a happy ending, because this story doesn't end. Tony gets to live and love and be loved, and he gets to be happy as he does so.

Tony grins as he dances around the dance floor with his husband and two kids. If only dear old dad could see him now, happy in every way Howard said he never could be.

(Tonight, not for the first time, Tony is breathless. But it's not from suffocation or a weight on his chest or someone stealing the reactor from his heart or a betrayal- it's because he's here, dancing the night away with people who love him without condition.)

"Here's to another great eight years for you guys," Peter says to Tony, eyes bright as he raises a glass of punch that may or may not have been spiked by Clint and MJ. Tony's not entirely sure, but as long as Peter's safe and careful then he's not exactly going to argue. (And even then, he's going to make sure that Peter's limited to one glass of the stuff- he doesn't want either of his kids going down the path he did, alcohol-wise.)

"And many beyond that," Riri says, raising her glass in turn, and she has just some lemonade that most definitely has  _not_  been spiked, because there's a difference between letting an eighteen-year-old and a fifteen-year-old drink and Tony  _will not_ cross it, not for his kid.

"And to you as well," Tony says, raising his glass to join theirs, and his isn't alcohol, either. He hasn't really drank any wine or alcohol since he got married, unwilling to slip back into his old, alcoholic ways. "To family."

Sam slips his free arm through Tony's free arm as he joins the three of them. "To family," he says with a smile, and the four of them reach forward and clink glasses.

Tony can't imagine a world in which he could possible be happier than this.

(Yeah, this is definitely where he wants to be.)

**Author's Note:**

> So, I have a few notes for a couple more stories in this 'verse (such as a Field Trip story), but for the most part, this is it. I hope you guys enjoyed this as much as I did, and I hope that it meant something to you. If you liked this, please feel free to comment/leave kudos! Both are invaluable to a writer, and they mean so, so much to me.
> 
> And from the bottom of my heart, thank you. Thank you for reading this, for supporting me as I wrote this, for being here and enjoying my work. It means more than I can say.


End file.
